A fundamental knowledge of gripping and associated terminology is assumed in this article and you won’t fully understand the material contained within unless you take the time to go and acquire that understanding and knowledge.

So caveat emptor aside, to business.

Russian Arm

Prevention being better than cure its best to attempt to stop the Russian arm coming over the top from ‘zero’.

The pre-cursor to the Russian arm is the lapel grip which is used to draw a person in so that the arm can be thrown.

This is stage one and so the point before your opponents attempt to get this grip is the ‘zero’. As such your first line of defence should be applying standard defensive tactics to prevent your opponent getting a grip on your collar. If you don’t know what these are you are not at a level to get much out of this article and best stop reading here...

If you fail to stop the Russian arm being thrown at the ‘zero’ and allow stage one to be established it is vital that you don’t allow the arm to be thrown successfully.

One method of preventing the arm coming over the top is to catch it as it is thrown.

Block hard with your hand as you circle around your opponent towards the arm they’re attempting to throw over.

From here one option is to grip uke firmly around the waist and hook or block their shin to take them into newaza.

This can be aided by the judicial application of a firm pelvic thrust.

Another option against the Russian arm

Is to roll your shoulder over, downwards and inwards to release the shoulder

This creates space and frees the shoulder, which the Russian arm seeks to control.

Continue to create space by stepping and circling around uke whilst gripping the armpit to assist in creating space

Keep creating space and circling until you can enter into newaza as described above or continue until you disengage and return to the ‘zero’.

Round the Back Grip

As with the Russian arm it is best to stop the round the back grip at the ‘zero’ either through posting their tsurite side shoulder or through preventing the set up grip.

A common method of getting to the round the back grip is to cross grip with the non-thrown hand

Either strip this grip off or use the hand on lapel defence.
If the cross grip is achieved and or the arm is thrown over successfully then use a shoulder roll to release the grip.

And then pulse and drive uke away from you

From another angle

Then circle away from the arm

Here Jeon shows the shoulder roll defence against the round the back grip as part of a successful gripping sequence leading to a throw.

Triceps Grip

One of the many forms of unorthodox gripping, the triceps grip can be very limiting to your Judo and puts your opponent in a position to launch a variety of orthodox and unorthodox attacks.

To break the triceps grip, roll your elbow upwards and outwards over their arm.

Then flip your forearm over theirs and grip their sleeve

Then bring in your tsurite hand and secure your control of their sleeve

Another problem with the tricep grip is when you get put in a situation where they have two hands on your sleeve.
As you reach for your opponents collar as in the post gripping sequence they cross grip low down on your sleeve

Then grip your triceps with their other hand, pulling you in, crushing your posture and preventing you from turning in for your techniques.

This grip breaks your posture, forcing you to lean over and preventing you from being able to use your hikite hand to perform techniques.

This is a dangerous place to be as you can’t attack you don’t have good posture and so a vulnerable to attacks and they are in a strong position to attack you either with innovative kata guruma applications like the Laats or simply come over the top and get a dominant grip

In order to prevent this you must take immediate defensive action.
Using your tsurite hand get a firm grip on their lapel in order to establish control and be able to defend

And use your head against their shoulder to brace and prevent them from attacking

This forces them to act as you now have throwing options, can defend strongly and they will be penalised for same sided gripping if they don’t attack or change grip. So your opponent will come and grip your tsurite sleeve.

Anticipating this action as uke releases his grip on your hikite sleeve in order to grip your tsurite sleeve step back and draw back your arm creating space.

You aren’t out of the woods yet though as uke still has a grip on your triceps

And can easily bring their hand back across and re-start the sequence

To break the triceps grip, roll your elbow upwards and outwards over their arm.

Then flip your forearm over theirs and grip their sleeve

Then bring in your tsurite hand and secure your control of their sleeve

Its important to not attempt to counter a triceps grip by throwing the Russian arm over the top. As not only is this one of the few situations under which Te guruma is still legal, but also those who adopt the triceps grip are invariably pick up specialists and so will be waiting for the air to come over the top...

Korean Grip

Encountering the Korean grip is rare, hence why I have left it until the end. However, it is a very powerful grip and very difficult to deal with if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The Korean grip takes a high grip on one lapel and then an even deeper grip on your other lapel pulling your head down, breaking your posture and giving the Korean gripper phenomenal control over your upper body

As always prevention over cure. Stop the technique at the ‘zero’.
If you fail, then establish a grip on uke’s back

Rotate your hand to establish tension in the gi material and a strong grip from which to create space

Drive off your strong back grip and roll your shoulder over. This needs to a very explosive and powerful movement.

From the other angle

Immediately start to circle away keeping pressure and creating space

Get the inside grip and then keep shoulder rolling and moving until you have created enough space to either disengage or attack.

Nice work, and shows why worrying about his kind of stuff unless you are doing Judo 5+ days a week and don't already have very strong basics is a confusing waste of time.

Just drilling the simplest pattern to get it down well will take weeks of dedicated work. All together, it's a long term project.

Ben

When I was gathering the visual aids/ researching for this I came across a comment by Pedro on his gripping dvd, where he says 'even my elite guys don't really get this stuff'.

It made me starting really thinking about my gripping and the gripping of my guys/gals. Normally I just do the standard lapel feed to get the collar and then grip the sleeve and let them have equal opportunity.

After I started paying attention I noticed that despite loads of lessons on gripping 99% didn't have a clue and so as soon as I started stepping things up; doing the lapel shrug, posting the tsurite shoulder, blocking my lapel with my hand etc... they were all at sea.

I had a long phone chat with my coach about it earlier and so next academic year he's going to come down hard on the gripping for the competitively minded guys.

When I was gathering the visual aids/ researching for this I came across a comment by Pedro on his gripping dvd, where he says 'even my elite guys don't really get this stuff'.

It made me starting really thinking about my gripping and the gripping of my guys/gals. Normally I just do the standard lapel feed to get the collar and then grip the sleeve and let them have equal opportunity.

After I started paying attention I noticed that despite loads of lessons on gripping 99% didn't have a clue and so as soon as I started stepping things up; doing the lapel shrug, posting the tsurite shoulder, blocking my lapel with my hand etc... they were all at sea.

I had a long phone chat with my coach about it earlier and so next academic year he's going to come down hard on the gripping for the competitively minded guys.

There are different stages to learning gripping just like anything else in Judo. It's easy to overload people who are just trying to learn how to move reasonably well and do simple throws, let alone add more complex gripping sequences to the mix. So it's no wonder they were at a loss when you "stepped it up". They don't have your experience or repetition with higher level judoka.

I had the same experience with my students, and they are probably much longer term with me than your college kids. The ability to move and throw has to increase to be able to integrate the move/grip/move/cut/regrip and mix in attacks at the same time.

Using ashi waza as part of a grip/attack sequence is a critical skill. But if you don't have the ashi waza down pretty well, then it won't work very well.

Prepare to be frustrated.

Also, cross gripping the lapel then trying to catch the sleeve is backwards for aiyotsu, but the right order for kenka yotsu. I started off my kids with the cross lapel to sleeve thing, but had to untrain them to catch sleeve first for ai yotsu. Of course, you can go for the near sleeve in kenka yotsu to catch the lapel and get inside grip as well.

As usual great work judoka_UK....I will add this to my Judo files. I know that Judo has rules regarding grips. In BJJ tournaments this has not happened yet. For instance I like to grab the front of the belt to set up certain takedowns. I was told that in Judo this was not allowed for more than a few seconds. I was also told that you have to remain in an upward stance during competition and not in a low stance or bent at the waist. Not sure if this is true so can anyone enlighten me on this.

As usual great work judoka_UK....I will add this to my Judo files. I know that Judo has rules regarding grips. In BJJ tournaments this has not happened yet. For instance I like to grab the front of the belt to set up certain takedowns. I was told that in Judo this was not allowed for more than a few seconds. I was also told that you have to remain in an upward stance during competition and not in a low stance or bent at the waist. Not sure if this is true so can anyone enlighten me on this.

You can grab and hold the belt for 5 seconds then you have to make an attack or receive a minor penalty.

Upright stance is traditional to judo.

You can bend over or use a wrestlers stance, but you will have to make an attack from there in a few (5) seconds or receive a penalty. Bend over and stiff arm and it will be a penalty right away.

If you plan to go to a Judo tournament, I suggest you go take some Judo lessons first and get familiar with the rules etc, especially ukemi (falling). Otherwise you will be in for a frustrating experience.

You can grab and hold the belt for 5 seconds then you have to make an attack or receive a minor penalty.

Upright stance is traditional to judo.

You can bend over or use a wrestlers stance, but you will have to make an attack from there in a few (5) seconds or receive a penalty. Bend over and stiff arm and it will be a penalty right away.

If you plan to go to a Judo tournament, I suggest you go take some Judo lessons first and get familiar with the rules etc, especially ukemi (falling). Otherwise you will be in for a frustrating experience.

Ben

I don't think I will ever compete in Judo tournament but I was doing private lessons with a Judoka to better my throws for a BJJ tournament. That's until the gas prices went up and ruined those trips.

I am currently working on having a Judo black belt teach several days a week at my academy so my students and I can be well rounded and do better in BJJ competition.